NHS guidance for patients explains that medical cannabis will only be prescribed for a limited number of conditions and only if all other treatment options have already been explored | Pharmaceutical Journal, UK

Reducing alcohol consumption is key to violence prevention, due to the strong association between alcohol consumption and an individual’s risk of becoming a perpetrator or victim of violence | Alcohol Focus Scotland, UK

Let's see. In the space of a month we have had an assistant referee being hit by a coin thrown by a Rangers fan in their Scottish Premiership game against Livingston. We had an elderly woman being hit by a bottle thrown by a fan - believed to be a Hearts supporter | BBC, UK

We aimed to use data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2016 to calculate global and regional estimates of the prevalence of alcohol, amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine, and opioid dependence, and to estimate global disease burden attributable to alcohol and drug use between 1990 and 2016, and for 195 countries and territories within 21 regions, and within seven super-regions. We also aimed to examine the association between disease burden and Socio-demographic Index (SDI) quintiles | Lancet, UK

Emergency department physicians are calling for more readily available testing strips to identify the presence of fentanyl in patients experiencing a drug overdose, and a rapid, coordinated response among health care providers and city agencies to help curb overdoses and identify high potency high risk drugs | Science Daily, USA

District attorneys are the most powerful players in the criminal justice system. But most people still don’t know who they are or what they do. Filter has conducted a first-of-its-kind investigation into where DAs representing the 50 most populous counties in the US stand on drug policy | Filter Magazine, USA

Epidiolex is a twice-daily oral solution—a cannabidiol, or CBD liquid—made by Britain-based GW Pharmaceuticals. It is approved for use in patients 2 years old and older with two types of epileptic syndromes, Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome | Medical Xpress, USA

PHE has published the latest alcohol and drug treatment statistics, which are for April 2017 to March 2018. They are taken from data collected by the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) from alcohol and drug services across England | PHE blog, UK

Research recently published in BMC Public Health found that rather than having health concerns, middle-aged drinkers who consume low-levels of alcohol, place more importance on their drinking behaviors conforming to socially acceptable narratives of their age, gender and identity | BMC Series blog, UK

Rarely does policy change so quickly. The home secretary Sajid Javid announced a review into the potential health benefits of cannabis in June and then, true to his word, he acted on the findings opening up access to cannabis products from the beginning of November 2018 | Nursing Times, UK

If the UK was setting up an expert committee on fertility and Professor Robert Winston applied to join, he’d be welcomed with open arms. If we were setting up a committee on the origin of the universe and Professor Brian Cox applied, there’s no question he’d be appointed. But NICE, the National Institute for Healh and Care Excellence, yesterday rejected Professor Mike Barnes’ application to join its committee on cannabis-based products for medicinal use | Clear, UK

The idea that John Bercow, who could face investigation for historical claims of bullying within the Commons itself retains the capacity to pass judgement on Osamor, leaves a pretty rank taste in the mouth | Independent voices, UK

Yesterday (31 Oct) the Mexican Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition of cannabis was unconstitutional - as it violated the ‘fundamental right to the free development of the personality’. As the fifth such judgement, under Mexican law, this now means that it is binding on all judges nationally - effectively (de facto) legalising the personal use, possession, private cultivation, and sharing of cannabis amongst adults | Transform blog, UK

Ireland is undergoing a serious shift in how it approaches drug-demand issues. Instead of relying on the criminal justice system to deal with people who use drugs, the national drugs strategy now rightly highlights drugs as a public health issue first and foremost | Independent, Ireland

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